The Cleveland Indians and starting pitcher maintenance

The Cleveland Indians, provided they meet preseason expectations, will have an opportunity to manage pitcher workloads to keep their starters fresh for the postseason.

If you follow the NBA at all, then you’re keenly aware of the debate surrounding the increasing prevalence of teams resting their best players in an effort to keep them healthy for the postseason. Regardless of where you fall on the issue, the teams themselves seem to be pretty sold on the idea that managing player workloads is a crucial factor in keeping them healthy and strong for the playoffs.

Of course, the NBA isn’t the only professional sports league with a demanding regular season schedule. Major League Baseball’s 162-game marathon of a regular season is nothing to sneeze out.

The comparison between the NBA and MLB is apples and oranges. No one actually thinks David Ortiz stepping to the plate four times a game as the designated hitter is equivalent to LeBron James dominating an NBA game over 40 minutes on the floor.

Nonetheless, the MLB season creates a need for teams to keep their players fresh. The idea is not new. Position players who take the field in all 162 games and pitchers who take the ball 33 times a year are becoming few and far between.

But just as the NBA is testing the bounds of what kind of rest is optimal to keep players at their fittest deep into the postseason, MLB teams have an opportunity to test player maintenance strategies to ensure their players are equipped for a run deep into October. This season, The Cleveland Indians may be one of the teams fortunate enough to employ such a strategy.

There are caveats of course. The NBA has 16 playoff teams, which means the top-tier teams can rest their best players with the assurance that they won’t miss out on a playoff spot. MLB only takes 10 teams for the playoffs, which means the margin of error for a team is much thinner, and the risk of resting players much higher.

In order for the Indians to think about a player maintenance strategy, they will have to be far enough ahead in the standings that they don’t feel their playoff chances are totally dependent on every game they play.

That’s one luxury NBA teams have that MLB teams don’t is that over half the NBA teams make the playoffs while only one-third of MLB teams make the playoffs, with four of those berths requiring the team to win a play-in game to make it to the “real” playoffs. MLB teams looking to rest players needs to be much more assured of its playoff life than its NBA counterparts.

Such a scenario is a long way away for a team off to a 4-5 start. But, for the sake of argument, let’s predict that the Indians will make good on the preseason projections and jump out to a big lead in the Central Division. In such a scenario, what should the team considering doing so that their players are in the best possible health and fitness heading into October?

The best answer lies in the starting rotation. The Indians have two starters in Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar whose immense talents come hand-in-hand with significant durability questions. In Corey Kluber, the Indians have a starter who threw 215 regular season innings in 2016 only to follow it up with 34 1/3 playoff innings, many of which came on short rest.

Kluber, Carrasco, and Salazar are vital to the Indians success. The Indians showed last year that with a deep bullpen and timely hitting they could work around not having two of those guys in the rotation. But it’s easy to imagine what the Indians could do when they’re able to line up the Kluber-Carrasco-Salazar troika to start a playoff series.

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If the Indians are fortunate to build up a sizable lead in the division by the time August rolls around, a big if to be sure, look for them to start skipping turns in the starting rotation down the stretch. They’ll have options to make it happen. The new 10-day disabled list will allow the Indians to assign one of those guys with a phantom “injury” so they can call up another starter to take his spot for a turn or two.

They have Mike Clevinger and Ryan Merritt waiting in the minors to soak up some starts, and if they are far enough ahead in the standings, it won’t even matter who makes the starts.

The Indians will gladly give up a meaningless game in September if it means their best starters have a little extra oomph in October.

There are no guarantees here. There’s no guarantee the Indians will build up a lead in the standings such that they can have pitchers skipping starts There’s no guarantee that resting starters will keep them healthier and more effective in October.

There’s no guarantee that resting Kluber, Carrasco, and Salazar confers any real benefit other than giving some Triple-A scrub a chance enjoy the postgame meal spread after getting torched in a meaningless September contest.

Next: Clevinger may be the 5th starter soon

But the Indians’ best chance to win the World Series is to have Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar primed and ready to go when the playoffs begin. If the Indians have the opportunity to manage their workloads with risking their playoff chances, don’t be surprised if they take it.